Glass House Mountains National Park

About

Glass House Mountains National Park is a heritage-listed national park at Glass House Mountains, Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Beerburrum Forest Reserve 1. It is 70 km (43 mi) north of Brisbane and consists of a flat plain punctuated by rhyolite and trachyte volcanic plugs, the cores of extinct volcanoes that formed 26 million to 27 million years ago. The mountains would once have had pyroclastic exteriors, but these have eroded away. The national park was established in 1994. On 23 June 2010 the Queensland Government announced the expansion of the park to include an additional 2,117 hectares (5,230 acres). It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 3 May 2007.

Camp grounds are available at Glass House Mountains township and Coochin Creek, west of Beerwah. Lookouts have been built at several of the summits. Walking tracks allow access to the summits of Mount Beerwah, Mount Tibrogargan and Mount Ngungun. Access is via the Steve Irwin Way exit from the Bruce Highway.

The Glass House Mountains are one of southeast Queensland's most impressive landmarks. They are situated 65–75 kilometres (40–47 mi) north of Brisbane and are a group of steep sided plugs of trachyte and rhyolite, once within volcanoes active in the early Tertiary Period. They have been exposed by wind and water erosion of the softer material of the cones and surrounding area and now rise dramatically from the flat coastal plain.

The mountains are central to the creation myths of the region and their spiritual and social importance and links to Indigenous people continues to this day.

The first European description of the Glass House Mountains was by Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook, when he sailed north up the east coast of Australia on his voyage of discovery in the ship HM Bark Endeavour in 1770. The shape of the mountains reminded him of the huge glass furnaces (glasshouses) back in his native Yorkshire and he named them accordingly. In his log for 17 May 1770 he wrote:

this place may always be found by three hills which lay to the northward of it in the latitude of 26 degrees 53 minutes south. These hills lay but a little way inland and not far from each other; they are very remarkable on account of their singular form of elevation which very much resembles glass houses which occasioned me giving them that name: the northernmost of the three is the highest and largest. There are likewise several other peaked hills inland to the northward of these but they are not nearly so remarkable.

Nearly thirty years later, Lieutenant (later Captain) Matthew Flinders sailed up the coast in the sloop Norfolk. In his report to the Governor of New South Wales, Captain John Hunter, dated 14 July 1799 he wrote:

At dusk Cape Moreton bore west two or three miles, and the highest glass house, whose peak was just topping over the distant land, had opened around it at 3 degrees west or 4 degrees north. Two Haycock like hummocks distinct from any other land opened soon after a few degrees to the southward.

On 26 July Flinders took two sailors and the Aborigine Bungaree and landed on the shore with the intention of climbing Mount Tibrogargan. They climbed Mount Beerburrum before setting off for Tibrogargan, which they reached the next day, but which they did not climb.

On 29 November 1823 John Oxley entered observations of the Glass Houses in his field book. Allan Cunningham also mentioned them in his report of 15 July 1829.

In 1839–42 Andrew Petrie and Stephen Simpson explored the Glasshouse Mountains and in 1848 Andrew and John Petrie climbed Beerwah and left a note in a bottle at the summit. Petrie and naturalist Dr Ludwig Leichhardt visited the area in 1843 and 1844 and made geological and botanical observations.

The Glass House Mountains have been an inspiration for artists since they were first described by Cook, including the painting by Conrad Martens ' Glasshouse Mountains, Moreton Bay. Numerous poems have been written about them and they have been the subjects of writings such as the short story, The Mountains Played, by Judith Wright.

The mountains have also been a popular subject for both amateur and professional photographers from the early years of photography to the present day. Recent musical works such as Robert Davidson's Tibrogargan and John Gilfedder's work Legend of the Tibrogargan testify to the continuing appeal of the mountains.

The proximity of the peaks to several large coastal population centres makes them destinations for tourists who participate in bushwalking, climbing and take-in the views from the mountains.

The Glass House Mountains provide islands of natural habitat for plants and animals. They conserve regionally significant areas of rhyolitic mountain vegetation that supports 26 plants that are rare, threatened or of conservation interest. The ridges, rocky pavements, scree slopes and gullies provide a variety of habitats for vegetation ranging from Eucalypt open forest to montane heaths and shrublands. The mountains also provide a habitat for many species of fauna, some of which are rare or endangered. The area now known as the Glass House Mountains National Park was first gazetted in 1954. Gazetted areas incorporated smaller parks such as Beerwah, Coonowrin, Ngungun and Tibrogargan. These smaller parks were amalgamated into the Glass House Mountains National Park in 1994.

The Glass House Mountains are a group of dome shaped hills and conical peaks rising sharply above the surrounding sub-coastal lowlands. They are the remnants of rhyolite and trachyte volcanic plugs and are located in southeast Queensland 65–75 kilometres (40–47 mi) north of Brisbane and west of the townships of Glass House Mountains and Beerburrum.

Glass House Mountains National Park and Beerburrum Forest Reserve 1 covers eleven of the 16 Glass House Mountains and a small parcel of land known as Blue Gum Creek. The park is in eight sections ranging in size from 11 to 291 hectares (27 to 719 acres) and in total cover an area of approximately 883 hectares (2,180 acres).

Mount Tibrogargan (364 metres (1,194 ft)) and Mount Cooee (106 metres (348 ft)) are composed of alkali rhyolite. Mount Cooee has caves and there are the remains of an old trigonometry station at the summit. It is a habitat for the peregrine falcon ( Falco peregrinus ). Mount Tibrogargan is the third highest and is open for the public to climb.

Mount Beerwah (556 metres (1,824 ft)) is composed of alkali trachyte. Near the top, there are large hexagonal cooling columns on its north side (the Organ Pipes). The mountain also has early timber trails and timber getters' campsites on the eastern side. It has caves and is also a peregrine falcon habitat. Mount Beerwah is the highest peak within the park; however public access to the "tourist track" in the National Park has been restricted since 2009.

Mount Ngungun (253 metres (830 ft)) is composed of alkali rhyolite. This mountain also has good examples of vertical columnar jointing and has caves. There is evidence of early 1950s quarrying activities.